


He's Not Bothering Me, Really.

by TimeLadyoftheSith



Series: Prompt Generator Insanity [17]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Colormayfade Prompt Generator, David Doesn't Understand Privacy, Dinosaurs are Twelve's Favorite, F/M, First Meet, Hotel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 02:25:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11522580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeLadyoftheSith/pseuds/TimeLadyoftheSith
Summary: Joshua McCrimmon is a widower, an author, and a teacher. He visits a small seaside hotel to work on his next book. He didn't expect to have a joint room separated by a door, but the kid in the other room has dinosaurs.





	He's Not Bothering Me, Really.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caedmon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caedmon/gifts).



Joshua McCrimmon wasn't exactly what one pictured when they thought of a primary school teacher or a successful children's author. He was tall and lanky, with wiry silver hair, steel blue eyes, and a grumpy face. He wasn't always surly though. His eyebrows just made him look that way, and paired with his sharp Scottish accent, he could sometimes come off as a bit sour. Still, he loved his students, and the scribbly letters from his young fans made him smile.

It was the summer holiday though, and for the first time in ten years he loaded up his car and drove to the coast. Joshua's intention was to work on his latest installment of his 'Archie Trowel' series, a chapter book aimed to children ages seven to ten about a young boy named Archie who had a magic trowel that let him travel in time to different periods of dinosaur history.

It had been inspired by his wife, Melody, and her passion for archaeology. They had never had children, despite trying for years, and the book had come to life as a way to help them cope with that fact. Joshua would write the story, but she brought them to life through her illustrations. It had been ten years since the horrible library fire, where Melody had been doing a book reading. She had died making sure everyone else had gotten out safely.

The small seaside hotel he was currently sitting in had been one of their favorite places to holiday. This was the first time he had worked up the courage to come back, but he hoped that he would gain some sort of inspiration. The last ten books had been half written manuscripts that he had thought of before she was lost, but now his creativity was waning. He needed to feel that spark, that energy that made him smile.

Yet, he couldn't find anything. He sat at the small desk, overlooking the gray sea underneath a growing summer storm. Joshua's mind refused to generate even the smallest of ideas. He tossed his pencil down and growled under his breath. The sound of the door that joined his room to the next opening drew his attention.

A blonde boy, somewhere between six ro seven he guessed, with wide brown eyes and playful smile bounded into the room. He had two toy dinosaurs clutched in his hand. "Hello Mister!" He wandered over to the desk and held out one of his toys. "Wanna play dinosaurs with me?"

"Where's your mum?" Joshua chuckled, picking up a stegosaurus and walking it towards the ceratosaurus he was holding.

"Bringing up our bags." The boy narrowed his eyes in concentration. "Ceratosaurs eat stegosaurs. You better run away!"

"Oh no!" Joshua made his toy run away, giving a mock screech of fear.

"David!" Woman's voice drew his attention to the door. "Don't bother the nice man." She was quite pretty, with shoulder length blonde hair and honey eyes. She looked to be in her late twenties, and was smiling apologetically. "So sorry to bother you. He doesn't exactly get the concept of privacy."

"Not a bother at all." Josh chuckled and passed the boy back his toy. "Dinosaurs are my favorite." David took his toy and hurried over to his mum. The pair disappeared behind the closed door, leaving him alone with his thoughts again.

He turned back to his work, determined to try to think of something. On his desk, he could almost picture the stegosaurus ambling along, his tail dragging. Maybe Archie could take a trip to the Jurassic period. Yes, that's exactly what would happen.

The first chapter took some work, as he tried to find the rhythm of the words that would draw the children into the story. He had just finished the first draft, when the door opened again.

"Hello Mister!" David skipped into the room, clutching his toys. "Whatcha doin?"

"Writing." Joshua lifted the page up. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting for my mum to get out of the shower." The dinosaurs went right back onto the desk. "Will you play with me some more?"

Joshua chuckled and looked over at the door. He scooped up the stegosaurus again. "Why not." He hurried it across the desk. "Oh no! You can't eat me Ceratosaur!"

"Oh yes I can!" David growled snd narrowed his eyebrows. "Here I come! You better run!"

Joshua's dragged the the plastic feet across the desk. "I'm going to go into this swampy area with trees!" He gave a fake roar and shifted the toy to the paper.

"Not if I catch you!" The boy gave a ferocious growl and dipped his toy down to make it bite the tail of the stegosaurus. "I've got you now!"

"Oh my god, David." The blonde woman reappeared, this time in a tank top and yoga pants, with her hair wrapped in a towel. "I am so, so sorry Sir. I told him to stay in the room and read."

"Honestly, it's no bother." He handed the toy back and smiled at her. "I'm a teacher, kids about his age actually." Joshua tapped his paper. "The distraction was fine."

"Right." The woman smiled again and waved David back over. "I'll try to keep him over here so you can work." The door closed behind them once more.

Joshua heaved a sigh. Now that he was alone again, the storm seemed darker. "I need more." He tapped the eraser of his pencil on the paper, and distractedly realized that the bot had left the stegosaurus behind. He scooped it up, walked to the door and knocked. There was no answer, so he listened to see if they were there. Not a single voice was audible.

He went back to his desk and set the dinosaur down. His mind had a million ideas bouncing off of each other, but none had a palpable path yet. Cursing his lack of creativity under his breath, he crumpled up the pages of the first chapter and tossed them into the rubbish bin. He could almost hear Melody chastising him for getting so heated, and how she would tell him to lie down and take a nap.

Joshua crossed to the bed, flopping down on top of the blanket and closing his eyes. Maybe a nap would help. He was overthinking things, missing the big picture, being an idiot to himself. He hadn't felt like he slept that long when the sound of paper rustling stirred him awake.

David was seated crosslegged on the floor, the crumpled pages unfolded on his lap, and his two dinosaurs standing on the carpet in front of him. The door was cracked open behind him, but the blond woman was nowhere in sight.

"It's rude to rummage through someone's things." Josh arched an eyebrow and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

"You write the Archie Trowel books?" Those brown eyes looked up from the Pages in excitement. "I love those books!"

"Do you now?" Joshua strolled over to the boy and folded his legs until he was seated across from him. "What do you think of this chapter. I don't like it."

"It's good, but how come Archie seems so dreary?" The boy was sharp, it seemed, as were many children if people stopped to listen.

"I dunno. Maybe that's why I don't like it." Joshua picked up the dinosaurs in his hands. "Did you come back to get your toy?"

"Are you dreary?" David turned the pages over in his hands. "Maybe you shouldn't write when it's stormy out."

"Maybe I shouldn't." Joshua chuckled and passed him the dinosaurs back. "You should go before your mum finds out."

"Can I stay a bit longer." David frowned as the sound of his mother became audible.

"You promised him, Jimmy. This is the fourth time." Ah, his parents were fighting. That explained why he had wandered over again.

"Come on, Davy boy, let's play dinosaurs." Josh scrambled to his feet and gathered some books and his jar of pencils and pens. "Here we have a super jurassic era world." He arranged the items as rivers and trees and mountains on the carpet. "I'm a stegosaurus, and these leafy trees look yummy!"

"I'm coming to get you!" David stomped his toy along. "Rawr! You can't hide."

Josh looked up as he heard the woman speak again, in a strained whisper. "Don't you Rose me. I don't even have to let you see him. You have no rights to visitation. I only agreed because it's his birthday and you promised you'd come. Yeah, well screw you." The sound of the door opening in the next room was audible

"It's your birthday huh?" He asked as the boy viciously attacked his dinosaur.

"Tomorrow! I'll be seven." David grinned and then laid down on his stomach so he could get eye level with the improvised scenery.

"Oh! Seven!" Josh mimicked his posture. "Good age, seven. Are you going to have a party?"

"I was supposed to go fishing with my dad and mum." David huffed. "But he isn't coming. He never comes, but maybe you can come with us."

"I dunno if your mum would like that." Josh chuckled. Kids were so unfiltered, and sometimes he wished adults would be that was too. "Plus, I have to finish my story."

"I can help you write it!" David's eyes lit up in excitement just as the door pushed open again.

"David, honestly." Rose, well Josh assumed that was her name, froze in the doorway at the picture before her. "Oh, what's going on in here?"

"Well, the stegosaurus." Josh grinned up at her cheerfully. "That's me, is trying to hide from the vicious ceratosaurus, that's Davy boy here."

Rose bit her lip, her eyes bouncing between the pair. He could see she wanted to scold the boy for wandering off again, but was hesitant to break up the fun. She stepped out of sight for a second, and then hurried back into the room and settled on the floor. "Can I play too?" She held up a velociraptor.

"Mum!" David laughed. "That's a velociraptor. They lived in the Cretaceous period!" Joshua bit back a snicker, until Rose beamed and shook her hair.

"Yes, but he stole Archie's magic trowel and traveled back in time!" She dropped to her stomach and gave a nice impression of a raptor screech.

"Mum! Did you know that this is Joshua McCrimmon?" David exclaimed excitedly. "He writes Archie Trowel! Look!" The boy yanked up the wrinkled papers that were being used to mark a swamp, and showed her.

"Oh!" Josh flashed her a smile as she gasped the sound out. Her cheeks turned a lovely shade of pink, and her hair fell a bit into her face. "If we're distracting you from your writing we can leave."

"No, no no no." Josh shook his head and went up to his knees. "Please stay, you're helping, really." A story was forming in his mind, a very special adventure for Archie. "I think I know what the next book is about now." He clapped his hands together and jumped up to grab the page he had been writing the plot out on. He jotted down the ideas in his head.

"David." Rose patted the boys head. "Why don't you go get your other toys and we can give him his writing stuff back." The boy hurried to his feet and away. "Mr. McCrimmon." She cleared her throat and stood up. "If we're keeping you from anything important tell me. I don't want to be an inconvenience."

"You're not." His pencil flew across the yellow page, circling, underlining, and connecting the map of ideas pouring at the image of her and David playing together. "I just wish.... gah." He slammed the pencil down in frustration. Josh needed pictures. He need to see if the story would flow. "I wish I could draw this out, but my wife, she was on the who used to do that, the illustrations."

"My mum is an artist." David spoke from the door, a half unzipped back pack full of dinosaurs in his hands. "She draws Archie pictures on my napkins for lunch."

The silence between the adults was palpable. Steel blue held with honey amber. Josh could taste it, very nearly, a tipping point. The afternoon storm had stopped pelting the glass doors with rain, and a quiet voice in his mind spoke words that rolled off his tongue. "Rose, would you and David like to join me for tea?"

"We'd be delighted." Rose's smile was an adorable thing, all tongue curled up against teeth. Joshua held out both of his hands, and fingers laced with his.

*****

Six months later Joshua was leaning against the cool wall of a library. David was resting his blonde hair back against his knees, as they watched Rose open a bright blue book.

" 'A Stegosaurus Ran Away With My Mum' an Archie Trowel adventure. Written by Joshua McCrimmon, and illustrated by Rose Tyler." Rose's honey eyes flicked up to his, and she gave him a wink before continuing. "It all started when my mum went to work in the garden. I just wanted to help, because it was going to rain before she could get her rose bushes planted."

Joshua looked down at the boy seated by his feet. When he had wandered into his room that weekend, neither had expected what would happen. He had certainly never imagined that the two Tylers would help soothe the ache in his heart. He had definitely not even dared to dream that one day Rose would turn her face as he pressed a friendly kiss to her cheek so that it landed on her lips. He never hoped that, at his age, he would ever find love again.

"I think you'd like her." He whispered to the air, going unheard by everyone lost in the story.

"Just be happy, sweetie." The voice in his mind answered back. He could do that, he thought, just be happy.

 


End file.
